In conversation with Dr. Jennifer VanderBurgh on "What Television Remembers"

In her forthcoming book, "What Television Remembers: Artefacts and Footprints of TV in Toronto," Dr. Jennifer VanderBurgh of Saint Mary's Department of English Language and Literature discusses the history of TV in Canada with a focus on its long-time relationship with the city of Toronto. Here is what Jennifer says about the book:

What gave you the inspiration to write What Television Remembers?

Television hasn’t traditionally been taken seriously as an artform and as a site of cultural memory. But I’ve often wondered, why not? We think of literature, film, and theatre in these ways, so why not television? Whenever I look at TV from the past, I’m struck by what it records and remembers. And by that, I don’t only mean that it remembers the ways that things looked or sounded in the past. I’m interested in how TV shows express ideas and ways of thinking about the world­, sometimes inadvertently, and that become apparent over time. This book is partly an attempt to convince people that we should pay more attention to television as a particular medium and platform that for over 70 years has represented and influenced cultural ideas and aspirations.

The book's title is quite evocative. Could you explain the significance of this title and how it reflects the themes explored in your work?

Television obviously doesn’t have agency or autonomy, but the idea that television is capable of “remembering” is intended to signal that the book considers television to be a site or archive of witness. Television is not a medium, a technology, a set of experiences, or a collection of individual shows––it’s all of those things at once. Television does “remember” in the sense that it has created a body of work that functions in particular ways, and as it does, it also leaves traces, impressions and “artefacts” behind. This dialectical way of thinking about television is a central idea that informs the book. As much as television “remembers,” it also leaves “footprints.” Television reflects the way that people think about the world, and at the same time, it meaningfully affects real-world mindsets and lived experiences. 

How did you approach the writing process of this book, and what were some of the challenges you faced?

The book took a long time to write, partly because of access to materials. It might be shocking to learn that in Canada, even though all television production is publicly funded in some way, there is no easily accessible television archive where the public can go to view the content that is produced in its name. Research for this book took me to many formal and informal archives and personal collections where I was fortunate to watch copies of television shows that are not otherwise available to researchers or TV enthusiasts.

The book introduction says that in it you "intervene in the story of the medium in Canada by exploring the long relationship between TV and the city of Toronto." Why is this specific relationship important to understanding the overall story of TV in Canada?

This is a great question, and, I think, an important aspect of the book. Because television is publicly funded in Canada, there is sometimes a tendency to think of it as inherently national. We refer to “Canadian television,” for example, which is a problematic idea, in part because TV shows aren’t made by or set in “Canada.” They are made by particular people with particular interests in particular locations. The story of television production in Canada is actually quite uneven. Canada’s national broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, for example, has set its high budget TV dramas in Toronto far more than anywhere else. There are a lot of pragmatic reasons why this has been the case, but one of the outcomes is that Toronto has come to stand in for the idea of Canada in CBC drama. Toronto has a unique historical relationship with the medium of television in Canada, and in the world. This is one of the central ideas that the book explores.

Many of your readers belong to the TV generation, and have grown up with television sets being an integral part of their households. Living through this era might make it somewhat challenging for them to fully grasp the contributions and legacy of television in Canada. Is that something you explore in the book? Would you like to discuss the importance and complexities of this legacy and its contributions with us?

Television has been a ubiquitous presence in many households. It’s been part of the background of everyday life. One of the things that I’ve tried to do with this book is to move television to the foreground in thinking about the role that it has played in shaping and reflecting what we think we know about the world as individuals, as communities, and as citizens. In this sense, television has actually been a relatively underappreciated driving force in many aspects of our lives. It is worth paying attention to for many reasons, but since television shows have typically been made for the moment and have not been considered legacy or cultural works, we don’t have the same tradition or mechanisms for studying them like other forms of literature or art. I’m hoping that this book might change that a bit and encourage people to advocate for some pragmatic custodial changes so that people can access television’s history for many reasons.

There is a notion that with the rise of online/digital media and the change it has caused in how people consume their news and entertainment, the TV era is over—is that a conclusion that you agree with, or is it possible that TVs may survive by continually evolving the way newspapers did with the advent of broadcast media, and later the digital media and internet?

One of the central ideas in media theory is that once a form of media is widely adopted, its influence never really disappears. We “scroll” on the internet, for example. I’m not the first to say that rumours of television’s apparent demise reflects misunderstandings of how television’s history continues to affect textual production, our current media landscape, and our user experiences on the platforms on which we stream “shows.” Television is certainly not gone but our ability to access to its history is becoming more challenging with every passing year. It’s important, I think, to do what we can to observe television while we still can.